I Know Just What You Mean: The Power of Friendship in Women's Lives ( York) by Ellen Goodman

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Description of I Know Just What You Mean: The Power of Friendship in...

Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman and novelist-journalist Patricia O'Brien provide a thoughtful, deeply personal look at the enduring bonds of friendship between women. Friends for twenty-seven years, they have served as confessors and advisers to each other during romantic, career, and child-raising crises, and have shopped together, laughed together, and enjoyed a bond unlike any other. Drawing on interviews with numerous women, the authors take readers into the heart of "the place where women do the work of their lives, the growing, the understanding, the reflection," and illuminate both the fragility and strength of relationships that are irreplaceable lifelines. I KNOW JUST WHAT YOU MEAN WILL STRIKE A CHORDWITH WOMEN OF ALL AGES.

Sometimes timing is the difference between a friendship that lasts a lifetime and one that fades, but as everyone who has let a friendship lapse knows, it's also a matter of effort. A friendship is a lot like romance--in the beginning all chemistry and luck, but then come commitment and dependability and other words that don't scream "fun." And as any old friends know, it keeps getting better if you hold on through the bends and curves. After more than 25 years of friendship, Ellen Goodman and Patricia O'Brien share their own story, the stories of other women, and plenty of insight from psychologists and students of human nature in I Know Just What You Mean. The two recount their first acquaintance from separate perspectives and make it clear that neither felt a transcendent bond about to form. (No eyes meeting across a crowded room, no knowing nods exchanged: "Yes, I am a divorced mother and journalist, too. Let's talk.") And here they ask, "What is it, really, that friends do for each other?" Give advice? Listen and nod? Bring a covered dish? Sure, friends do these things, but above all, they know you in a way most people don't. Many readers will recognize Goodman's name from her syndicated column, O'Brien's from her novels and nonfiction. Aside from its merits as a piece of writing (Goodman and O'Brien live up to their mutually high standards), I Know Just What You Mean makes you think about your friends and friendships, past and present. And perhaps the best testament to what these two old friends have created is how much you want to pick up the phone and tell a friend about it. --Gwen Bloomsburg

Manufacturer Description

Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman and novelist-journalist Patricia O'Brien provide a thoughtful, deeply personal look at the enduring bonds of friendship between women. Friends for twenty-seven years, they have served as confessors and advisers to each other during romantic, career, and child-raising crises, and have shopped together, laughed together, and enjoyed a bond unlike any other. Drawing on interviews with numerous women, the authors take readers into the heart of "the place where women do the work of their lives, the growing, the understanding, the reflection," and illuminate both the fragility and strength of relationships that are irreplaceable lifelines. I KNOW JUST WHAT YOU MEAN WILL STRIKE A CHORD WITH WOMEN OF ALL AGES.

Sometimes timing is the difference between a friendship that lasts a lifetime and one that fades, but as everyone who has let a friendship lapse knows, it's also a matter of effort. A friendship is a lot like romance--in the beginning all chemistry and luck, but then come commitment and dependability and other words that don't scream "fun." And as any old friends know, it keeps getting better if you hold on through the bends and curves. After more than 25 years of friendship, Ellen Goodman and Patricia O'Brien share their own story, the stories of other women, and plenty of insight from psychologists and students of human nature in I Know Just What You Mean. The two recount their first acquaintance from separate perspectives and make it clear that neither felt a transcendent bond about to form. (No eyes meeting across a crowded room, no knowing nods exchanged: "Yes, I am a divorced mother and journalist, too. Let's talk.") And here they ask, "What is it, really, that friends do for each other?" Give advice? Listen and nod? Bring a covered dish? Sure, friends do these things, but above all, they know you in a way most people don't. Many readers will recognize Goodman's name from her syndicated column, O'Brien's from her novels and nonfiction. Aside from its merits as a piece of writing (Goodman and O'Brien live up to their mutually high standards), I Know Just What You Mean makes you think about your friends and friendships, past and present. And perhaps the best testament to what these two old friends have created is how much you want to pick up the phone and tell a friend about it. --Gwen Bloomsburg